Expressive linguistic development of Bangla-speaking children with severe congenital hearing impairment

Abstract

To acquire speech and language using a hearing aid along with speech and language therapy plays a vital role for children with hearing impairment. The present study tries to determine the importance of speech therapy in developing expressive language of Bangla-speaking children with hearing impairment. In addition, this study shows their development of pragmatic capacity. A qualitative method is used in this research and the data are collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. All 14 participants of the research are divided into two groups: each consists of 7 children having the same level of hearing impairment at the same age but one of them is facilitated with SLT (Speech and Language Therapy). The result reveals that the phonological performance of Bangla-speaking children who receive speech and language therapy regularly and use hearing aids is better than that of Bangla-speaking children who use only hearing aids. The result of this study indicates a positive impact of providing speech and language therapy regularly for Bangla-speaking children with severe congenital hearing impairment.